well he may—a leader like Saul, "taller by the head and shoulders than the rest of the people"—and he asks Helen to name him also. This is Ajax of Crete, son of Telamon, a giant chieftain, "the bulwark of the Greeks," represented here in the Iliad as easy-tempered and somewhat heavy, as it is the wont of giants to be, degraded by medieval and modern poets into a mere bulk without brains. "Mars' idiot," Shakespeare calls him, "who has not so much wit as would stop the eye of Helen's needle." Shirley, in his 'Ajax and Ulysses,' carries out the same popular notion:—
"And now I look on Ajax Telamon,
I may compare him to some spacious building;
His body bolds vast rooms of entertainment,
And lower parts maintain the offices;
Only the garret, his exalted head,
Useless for wise receipt, is filled with lumber."
By the side of Ajax Helen also marks King Idomeneus of Crete, a frequent guest in the palace of Menelaus in happier times; for the court of Sparta, as will be seen hereafter in the Odyssey, was in these heroic days a centre of civilisation and refinement. Two chiefs Helen's anxious eyes vainly try to discern amongst the crowd of her countrymen,—
"My own two brethren, and my mother's sons,
Castor and Pollux; Castor, horseman bold,
Pollux, unmatched in pugilistic skill;
In Lacedæmon have they stayed behind?
Or can it be, in ocean-going ships
That they have come indeed, but shame to join
The fight of warriors, fearful of the shame
And deep disgrace that on my name attend? " (D.)
Helen's self-reproachful surmises have not reached
he truth. The "Great Twin Brethren," who had once
